Neuromancer
by Tenebris Z
Summary: Momonga was not the only member of Ainz Ooal Gown to be transported to the new world. Tabula Smaragdina, the great alchemist of Nazarick and creator of Albedo, was also transported to this world, but in a very different location and without advanced items or NPCs to help him. How will he get by and will he find the new Ainz Ooal Gown? Rated for violence and some horror themes.
1. Chapter 1: New Game

**Tabula Smaragdina**

 **Epithet** : The Great Alchemist

 **Gender** : Male

 **Race** : Heteromorphic Race - Brain Eater

 **Affiliation** : Ainz Ooal Gown

 **Occupation** : The Tomb of Nazarick's "Gimmick Maker"

 **Racial Levels**

Brain Eater (10)

Neuromancer (5)

 **Job Levels**

Alchemist (15)

Doctor (15)

Life Crafter (10)

Wizard (10)

War Wizard (10)

Vivisectionist (10)

Craftsman (10)

Gene Stealer (5)

 **Total Level** : 100

-O-O-O-

 **Prologue**

With only a single tiny but precise cut of the scalpel the ogre warlord collapsed. The loot drop would have been amazing to any level 10 to 15 players. Enough gold to buy a few armor sets and that mace would have made any properly spec'ed a fighter ecstatic, that was until the party began to bicker over who got what loot. Not today however. As this ogre fortress dungeon had just been cleared by a single lone player. Tabula Smaragdina returned the low level scalpel to his starter doctor garb. He'd been playing YGGDRASIL for years now, so much so that he had leveled up his character to the maximum level of 100, becoming not only one of the most powerful players in the entire game, but also a member of one of the most infamous guilds in that game, Ainz Ooal Gown.

Tabula himself was a player race known as a "Brain Eater". He had a mostly humanoid body, but with an extremely thin and emaciated frame covered in semi-amphibious smooth grey skin. His head resembled a large octopus with tentacles flowing down over his shoulders and back, making for useful additional limbs at times. He had chosen the race primarily for its creepy appearance, as he was a huge fan of horror, among other things. To compliment it he also tried to create the creepiest combination of classes he could, focusing on medical mutilation and Frankenstein body horror through alchemy, crafting, and medicine. The character was never intended to be particularly powerful, or suited to PVP. It was just meant to be cool. Of cause his focus in creation made him an invaluable member to his guild as an item, trap, and monster creator.

Normally he'd have been wearing his end game enchanted surgeon robes. But as YGGDRASIL would soon be shutting down their servers, possibly forever, he decided to go on a nostalgic ride through some of the early dungeons he played in so many years ago. Normally this Ogre fortress would have taken a solid party of at least a dozen level 10 or so players to beat. But he got through the whole thing without ever losing more than one or two points of health, and that was with only starter items and without casting any of his potent destruction spells.

Tabula chuckled, "Hah, it's interesting to see how far I have come." He mused to himself, "It's a shame I had to leave Herohero and Momonga alone in the guild room… but he kind of just wanted to solo play for a while... Part of the nostalgic experience." It did feel like a huge part of his life, and indeed all their lives was going to be dying soon, but at least he still had most of his guild friends on social media. Perhaps they could still find another game to play?

He looked around the room, it was something of a throne room, ogre corpses thrown about, so much blood but only small wounds on most of the creatures, evidence of Tabula's medical combat skill thanks to the Vivisectionist job. Large tables with barely half cooked food for the ogres as he had interrupted them in the middle of their "dinner time routine". He slowly walked up to the warlord's throne and sat down. Pulling up his menu the holograph like box appeared in front of him and with a few waves of his long spindly webbed fingers he cycled through information, "Herohero just logged off… although it looks like Momonga is still online… maybe I should message him." He considered it for a few moments before shaking his octopi bead, "Nah, The servers got minutes left at most, and I've got nothing to say… I'll message him and everyone else tomorrow."

Leaning back into the animal fur draped stone throne he realized how tired he was suddenly feeling. He didn't have any time to do any more low level quests, even at his ridiculous level. He'd just sit there and wait for the servers to shut down… any moment now…

 **LEVEL 1**

With a start Tabula awoke, sitting up quickly his inhuman mouth creating a spluttering squeal in surprise. His hand reached up to rub his head as he whispered to himself, "Woah… I must have dozed off… I didn't think I was that tired."

He looked around the room in confusion, "What time is it? Did they extend the shutdown time." He raised his hand and attempted to activate the menu, only nothing happened.

"W-what?" He said before attempting the same action again several times, still the menu did not appear. It was then he also began to realize the smell of blood around him… usually YGGDRASIL's simulated smells were limited at best, there was probably only a dozen smells in the entire game, and certainly not a smell for old caked blood… but that was definitely blood he could smell.

He looked around the room again, realizing that much of the spilled ogre blood had oxygenated, gone brown through contact with the air. This was something he understood well from his obsession with horror, but he knew it was a piece of real life YGGDRASIL never bothered to implement.

Starting to get worried he stood up, noticing his eyesight was sharper then it usually was. He also noted an unusual amount of dexterous control over his tentacle appendages. Normally players only had a limited amount of control over their non-human limbs in YGGDRASIL But Tabula was now finding himself flexing them around with articulate ease, like they had been a part of him his entire life.

"This is too weird!" He exclaimed to himself, "What is this? Some kind of unannounced update?"

Before he could ponder anymore he heard a sound that chilled him to his very core, "HalCK! Help! Plea-ahck, Please!"

He turned to his right and followed the noise until coming to a hallway connecting to the throne room, a single dismembered ogre lay on the ground he remembered taking that NPC down, he scored less damage on that one then most others, but it was still more than enough to kill it… or at least disable it after several more attacks.

As he approached the wounded ogre the thing saw him with its one still intact eye, its entire body seized as it attempted to flee on limbs it did not have. Only a single arm that ended in a bloody stump at the elbow remained, but that couldn't move its corpulent form.

"What the hell?" Exclaimed Tabula, YGGDRASIL was no children's game, but gore like this had never been a feature of it, certainly not such gruesome sights as half dead enemies whimpering for their lives.

Upon realizing it could not move the ogre seemed to stop fighting it and mealy slumped down staring up at the brain eater that slaughtered its brethren. "Y-Yah stoopid squeid ting!" He seemed to be trying to trying to think of an insult but could only shout in pain again.

It collected itself again before grunting, "Go on then! Pleease! FINISH ME!"

Tabula took a step back in shock from the confronting scene before him. He had long been desensitized to basic gore form this beloved horror movies… but seeing it in front of him in person like this, with this weird sense of guilt… He felt like he was going to throw up. His stomach lurched, but just before he could empty out a green glow shone around him, seeming to alter his mood, he suddenly felt as though he was unfazed by the gore before him. Like it was inconsequential, even… beautiful?

Doing the only thing he could think of, he drew out his viciously sharp scalpel and completely severed the ogre's neck arteries. The creature seemed to give Tabula the faintest of smiles as though thanking him for his mercy, and finally bled out, dying.

"What's going on?" Asked Tabula to the air, "Th-this can't be YGGDRASIL!"

He quickly turned around and ran towards a stair case, making his way up towards the top of the fortress. He knew the Ogre fort was in the center of a wide open Badlands, but upon reaching the top and stepping out into the air he gasped.

All around the fortress in every direction was a huge lush forest that the fort had been seemingly just dropped straight in the middle of. Tabula leaned on a stone palisade barely processing what was going on.

"Where the hell am I?!" He looked down at his long webbed fingers, and at his slithery smooth and ever so slightly moist tentacles that he raised beside his hands, "This is… Is this real?"

-O-O-O-

(Author's Note: I should make sure reader's are aware that I have not read the light novel (Mostly because I have not yet been able to find a copy) Although I have watched the anime and read the Manga. As such some parts of the world I will probably have to fill in myself, and some of it may conflict with the novel's lore. Although I will do my best to avoid this. If I give any easily corrected lore errors please let me know and I'll probably fix them.)


	2. Chapter 2: Frankenstein

**Life Crafter**  
Among YGGDRASIL jobs, Life Crafter was among the harder to get. Not only did it require at least a level 60 character, but also that character have at least 15 levels in Alchemist, 15 levels in Doctor, and the ability to cast 2nd tier transmutation spells, since these required jobs didn't offer the offensive boom most players were looking for, the class was actually quite rare. It granted the player many abilities and skills to create various types of monster and minion, and not just guild house NPCs. Although necromancers were efficient summoners of legions of undead minions, the Life Crafter had far greater variety of permanent customizable minions. Most of these creations did however require component parts.

-O-O-O-

Tabula spent some time pondering over his situation. Eventually he decided that whether this was real or not, it was best to treat it like it was. If he died in YGGDRASIL he only took a 5 level penalty and lost his currently equipped gear... but what would happen if he died here? If this was all still fake surely someone would be able to rescue him, and without his menu there wasn't exactly much he could do about it. The best he could hope for was to figure out how much of his old abilities he retained and perhaps try to find other YGGDRASIL players who were in the same situation he was.

He walked though the halls of the fortress looking for whatever it had that he could use. He needed to create minions to protect himself. Sure nothing that had been in this fortress before could hurt him, but he didn't know where he was now or what level the area was. So he needed to use all the skills at his disposal to stay alive. He soon realized he lacked most of the things he needed to make any worth while minions. He lacked an arcane laboratory that would help him create elementals or demonkin, he didn't have any of the ingredients to create any worth while oozes, and there was no way he'd find any bio-vats to grow custom monsters and haemonculus... He did have a lot of ogre corpses however, a flesh golem would be easy to create.

After returning to the throne room, which was the one place in the fortress with the most corpses, he almost instinctively reached for the menu to start creation. "Wait... so how do I..." As he thought about it he realized the knowledge was simply coming to him. As a player he never really knew the technical requirements of creating a monster, it was always just a few button presses then waiting (especially since most of it would have been impossible in the real world anyway), but here, here all the information was just coming to him like he'd known it all along.

Following what his memory told him he took out his knives, string, needle and leathers and began to work. He cut flesh and bone where his instincts seemed to tell him and bonded them back together where he somehow knew it would work most efficiently. Muscle, bone, and vain sealed back together with cheap alchemical solvents and sheets of skin where bound over it with string and leather. He remembered that he could grant flesh golems simple intelligence and the ability to work independently when given the brain of a freshly killed sentient creature. He quickly moved to the Ogre he'd recently euthanized and exposed its brain after only a few simple cuts and breaking of skull. His conventional real world knowledge told him that this was far to unclean. The brain would be instantly filled with airborne bacteria, and that's ignoring his unwashed hands... Yet somehow his instincts told him it didn't matter. That his powers and skill compensated for any unhygienic methods.

With the brain revealed Tabula assumed he would simply take it out with his hands, but as he reached for it his instincts seemed to tell him to use his tentacles. Abiding the strange feeling he found the boneless limbs easily sliding around the organ like they'd been made for it. Ever so small razor sharp claws along their tips tore through the connecting spine tissue like cardboard. As the brain was lifted out of the ogre's cranium he turned to bring it to the golem before gasping as he felt the wrinkly flesh touch his carnivorous teeth. He pulled the brain away and stared at it, tightly coiled in his tentacles... He was about to eat it! He realized only then, that for a brief moment without even thinking his mind and body wanted to devour the thing in his clutches. Shocked by what he'd almost done he dropped the brain into his hands.

"I guess... That's why my species are called 'Brain Eaters'." He whispered to himself. In YGGDRASIL players could eat virtual food to gain temporary buffs but this was never required and they certainly never have any compulsion to. Would he need to eat brains to live? He knew that thanks to his racial classes he could gain certain buffs and advantages from eating the brains of special creatures... but he rarely did it and when he did it was never like this...

Sighing, he decided to try and not think about it for now. He needed the brain to finish the golem. Perhaps this would be a hurdle he would have to cross when he came too it.

After implanting the brain and sealing up the skull and skin he stepped back to marvel in morbid fascination at what he'd created. Its likeness to ogres was undeniable but it was clearly something more. Its legs were longer with multiple joints and it had four arms, hand picked from the strongest corpses he could find. Its back hulked out behind it to make space for the additional organs he'd implanted into it for extra stability and to support its additional mass, and around its head were two additional eyes, giving it a wider range of vision. A small part of him was horrified by this freak of nature he'd assembled, but it was overpowered by shear fascination. How much of this was natural and how much of this was his new self affecting him he couldn't say. But now this thing just needed activation.

He held up his hands, instinct guiding him, and cast a spell, sparking the flesh golem with only a small amount of transmutation animating magic to jump-start its organs and neutral systems. The cracks between its stitching glowed with a faint energy as it coursed through it like veins. After about 6 seconds its muscles began to twitch, soon after its eyes began to wriggle. Tabula then stepped back in both horror and excitement as the thing began to stand. Its large misshaped mouth opened with a long groan before taking a few moments to find its balance and finally stand up full, inhaling deeply with its three lungs. It was well over twice the height of Tabula as it looked down at him.

"Ma... Master?" It said, its voice gravelly but its accent somehow also intelligent. "Master. Thank you for giving me life. What is my purpose?"

For a short while Tabula could only gawp at the thing. He'd created hundreds of golems of many types in YGGDRASIL... But not even 'intelligent' ones had actually spoken. "Your p-purpose?"

He cleared his throat and stood straight, taking on a far more clear and confidant tone, "Your purpose is to serve and protect me loyally until I decide otherwise."

The beast simply nodded, its expression unchanging, "Of cause Master. I live only to serve you and your desires."

Tabula smiled, this was so strange, but he couldn't deny he was having fun, "Good! I am Tabula Smaragdina and I shall call you... Franklin, Franklin Stein!"

Franklin seemed unfazed by its new name, "Very well, Master."

 **Level 2**

After using the most basic skills from his Craftsman job Tabula fashioned himself a simple brown cloak that concealed his entire body, most namely his rather obtrusive tentacles. He also created some simple leather armor to fit him from what he could find from the ogres. Although he would probably not need it, every bit of potential protection helped him feel safer. With that, Tabula and Franklin left the ogre fortress and made their way through the dense forest. A few times Franklin needed to twist its body through the trees to fit, but he still managed to follow behind Tabula obediently.

Neither in real life nor in YGGDRASIL did Tabula have any skills of navigation. Nor did he have a map, a compass, or anything on him that might help. As he walked with Franklin he looked up at the sky through the canopy of trees, judging from the sun's low position it was likely somewhere around 4 to 7 PM. Perhaps he should get a camp going for the night. Eventually he heard the sound of running water, it didn't take long to follow the sound and find a small running stream.

Tabula sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, his bony emaciated limbs now very tired from the hours of walking, "Franklin, Go find some firewood and bring it back here. Oh, and if you find any people or signs of civilization do everything you can to not be seen and immediately come back and tell me."

The flesh golem nodded obediently, "Yes master. I shall not be long."

After he'd left Tabula decided to cast one of the very simple spells he knew. A tier 1 spell that would create a small pit in the ground, perfect for a camp fire. The spell worked exactly as it was meant to, the transmutation magic sparking from his fingers and pushing the earth down until it was the shape he desired. "Interesting... I wonder if my more destructive higher tier spells would work the same."

Soon after he began to realize he was becoming hungry, he thought back to the brain he held in his tentacles just several hours earlier... Could he eat other foods? Or would be be condemned to eat nothing but brains? He thought back to what he could remember of the lore of YGGDRASIL's Brain Eaters. They ate not only the physical grey matter but also thoughts for sustenance, if he remembered correctly.

It was just then that his tentacles shook as he sensed a presence. He looked up, his head moving about as his delicate but acute senses tried to pinpoint the disturbance. He realized that about 20 to 30 meters away was a dear drinking from the stream. Seemingly unaware of his own presence.

His hunger seemed to spike again even more aggressively as he whispered, "Maybe... I should give it a shot?"


	3. Chapter 3: New Quest

**Neuromancer  
** An enigmatic alternative to magic, psyonic jobs offered mind based powers to players of YGGDRASIL. Most of the jobs that incorporated psychic abilities where either extremely difficult to acquire or required specific races, mostly heteromorphic ones. Brain eaters in particular were one of the races capable of becoming a Neuromancer, a psychic focusing on the manipulation of others minds with a system more akin to magic then most psychics who were limited by their character's mental fortitude for how frequently they could use their abilities. Neuromancer's on the other hand could use mana to power their mental fortitude, making it an effective Job to use along side magic jobs such as Wizard.

-O-O-O-

Tabula sat in silence for some time, letting his preternatural senses simply explore the nearby creature, closer inspection revealed it was a doe. In YGGDRASIL he could use his psychic powers to manipulate lesser minds without having to resort to generally much more mana intensive and conspicuous spells. The lack of interface or HUD at first once again felt like a problem. However after putting thought and intention towards the goal he felt his 'instincts' guide him as he reached out his mind to brush against the deer's.

It was a strange sensation, like his hand was pushing against an object. He thought of it like a force he could only imagine reaching out. The deer's own mind reacted to the presence. Though there were trees blocking his line of sight his psychic connection he'd established sensed the deer's confusion and alarm. It seems the creature couldn't detect that he had psychically contacted it, but it could feel his mental interaction and was startled. He could tell it was about to run, he thought the word stop but the deer seemed to ignore the command as it began to leap away. Finally before it escaped him Tabula focused on the metaphysical mind he was touching and concentrated his thoughts not into the word stop, but on the concept of motionlessness. Suddenly the force he interacted with froze, like a spherical muscle tensing up.

Tabula quickly realized what he'd just done. it was a psychic power he often used in YGGDRASIL when outnumbered. It allowed him to temporarily psychically freeze enemies who failed to resist the power. He thought back to what else he had, and attempted to think calming thoughts to the deer, an ability he use to use on NPCs to try and stop agro. Useful for redirecting their focus to the party's tanks, as well as for getting quick get aways when he was alone and outnumbered. For now though he thought perhaps it would simply stop the deer from fleeing. Finally he tried one more power the game affectionately called, "Dominate" which he whispered as he attempted to use it. So long as he maintained his focus and the target did not successfully resist the power, he could gain control of them. As the power washed over the consciousness he had contact with he attempted to command it, "Come" he thought before realizing simply thinking the word did little good like it did in YGGDRASIL. His powers here seemed like their use required more finesse.

He pictured the consciousness he held in his mind like a ball which he pulled closer to himself, focusing on the abstract but simple idea of him and it coming together, rather then just commanding it to do so. Within a few moments he heard the sound of steps pattering though the water. He looked up and indeed there she was. The doe was looking towards him with almost inquisitional mannerisms, but her eyes were blank and unfocused. Tabula continued on with the thought, strengthening it. He realized he felt something, the deer was trying to fight back. A strange sensation, as though the ball he was holding with his mind was being pulled away. But the force pulling at it was weak in comparison to his own mind. He could simply pull and the ball would come. In YGGDRASIL if an NPC's resistance check was successful his control would simply be broken. Here however it seemed the battle for mental control wasn't just the calculation of ones and zeros behind the scenes. In this world the psychic fight was a very real thing that he realized required his focus. Of cause as a mere animal this deer didn't put up much of a fight... he wondered how difficult it would be to control intelligent human like creatures.

However, before he could ponder any further he realized the doe's face was already before his. His focus wavered for only a moment but it was not long enough for the simple mind to regain control. He looked into the animal's blank eyes, realizing he could sense the creatures fear as it tried to move but its muscles betrayed it. It dawned on Tabula he had forgotten the entire reason for attracting the deer, only for his hunger to remind him. He found his mind battling between the contradicting instincts of his human origin and his current brain eater state. He seemed stuck, unsure of what to do, or even how to do it if he did. A single of his tentacles reached up, hovering in the air almost like a snake up towards the cervine, his hunger driving the inhuman limb as his mind battled for clarity. Was this something he would have to do? was it something he even could do?

As the tentacle came into contact with the deer's forehead he felt it, the low energy of the deer's mind. It was like touching his tongue to food, tasting it but not actually heating it. The thoughts of the deer, though simple and animal, felt so much clearer now, like setting a video to high definition. The inhuman parts of his mind began to take hold as a second tentacle began to raise, the two appendages slid along the sides of the animal's head, looking, feeling, and testing to find the best way to grip it so the prey could not escape. A third tentacle rose, the tiny blades on them began to get ready. He no longer felt the quiet disgust for what he was considering. The creature was merely hungry, and it could tell that even though the mind of such a simple creature would be bland, it would still be acceptable. As more tentacles rose his toothy mouth began to open and-

"I have returned, Master." announced Franklin.

-And with that his concentration ended, his grip, both psychic and physical, slipped away, and like a spring being released the deer bounded away with lightning speed, in less then two seconds it was like it had never been there at all. The faintly confused flesh golem stared off in the direction of where the deer had fled before giving a dismissive grunt. "Hmm... I have both firewood and information, Master Tabula."

Franklin looked down at his master, who was simply sitting on his log, motionless, his appendages now hanging limp as he processed what had just happened. "Master?" Asked Franklin, "Did I interrupt something?"

"I..." muttered Tabula, still getting his mind straight. Looking back at his actions in retrospect he felt terrified by himself. It didn't feel like it was himself acting moments ago but instead... his character... It was like for a brief time he was no longer the human who once played YGGDRASIL but was instead the very character who he made to inhabit the world. He finally looked up at Franklin and responded, "I-it was nothing. I mean, put the wood in the pit."

The creation ponderously but obediently did as it was commanded before crouching down in a manner that Tabula could only interpret as a resting position. In retrospect Tabula realised that he likely knew a spell that could grow wood, rather then need to find it. This was something he needed to experiment with.

"What... what was your information?" He asked.

"Approximately 500 meters from here," began Franklin, "is a village in the base of a small mountain." Tabula's fishy eyes widened, "Civilization?" he asked rhetorically. "Did you see what species lived there? How big was it?"

Franklin spoke simply but succinctly, "Human. About 2 dozen buildings. It looked like a mining village. No one saw me."

Tabula briefly noticed how strange it was that his creation was able to extrapolate such an observation, especially without being asked too... Indeed he was far more advanced then any NPC from YGGDRASIL.

"Once it is dark I will go and inspect these people for myself. I will see who or what they are. Our goal now is to discover if anyone else has come to this world from YIGGDRASIL." He looked at the flesh golem, "You know what that is, right?"

"Yes master." It responded, "It is where I lived before you created me." The statment was a little surprising to Tabula. Although not entirely unexpected. Franklin still had memories in its brain from when it was just an ogre. "And do you harbor any ill will to me?"

Franklin looked at Tabula, as though he was considering the question carefully, "I am no longer an ogre, and my purpose now is to serve you, master, for as long as you require it. I am now Franklin Stein."

Tabula let out a light chuckle, "Your loyalty will not go unrewarded, Franklin. So far it seems all of my powers from YGGDRASIL work just as well here as they did back home. and if this is true, the people here will be like putty in my tentacles. We'll find any others from YGGDRASIL who came her... and maybe find a way back."

-O-O-O-

(Author's note: Sorry about the long wait for this chapter. Been a lot of things going on in my life... Also just a little bit of lazy. But please, constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated to help me improve. Not to mention any feed back will help encourage me to continue. Thank you all for reading and for your support!)


End file.
